Skip to main content

3rd And 4____Still Loving the NFL

 


3rd And 4—Still Loving the NFL

I’ve been watching Professional American Football games since the end of 1966. No, not with my dad. But I started watching those games with my older brother. Why? Because it was Wicked Man! Like Cool! And only the cool people knew just how cool it was.

If you couldn’t sit there and watch a bunch of guys go head-to-head for your entertainment; then who were you anyway? So, we’d thought. My mother was a ‘real’ girl. She wanted nothing to do with such violence. My dad barely watched NFL games. And for some reason he’d preferred watching Professional Ice Hockey games. I’ll say it was to see an unscheduled fight break out. Because he thought that was how ‘real men’ acted.  You didn’t take a shove on the chin. A real man let it bother him and subsequently took care of business by retaliating with brute force. So, it seemed his thinking.

My brother and I loved the NFL games. We’d watch them, then we would apply the plays we witnessed to our unorganized football game’s plays. We’d get about eight or more guys together and play pick up football games on a Saturday and sometimes on a Sunday too. It was a good time and place to rough-house without Mom hovering around us. If she’d ever witnessed us doing this—it indeed would have freaked her out.

The risks you’d take on 3rd down and 4 yards to go, were incalculable. When that time came, my brother would become Daryle Lamonica, a.k.a. the Bomb. For there were no first downs on the merely fifty yards or so field size we’d played on. Each team got four downs per possession to get a touchdown. There were no three-point field goals. Nor were there the extra points kicked and tallied up. Back then, ‘No Roughing the Passer’ didn’t exist. It was sort of like—Kill the Guy With the Ball. Which truly made it more entertaining. That was because my brother was super-fast. Unlike me, my brother received all the fast genes from any of our ancestors who had them.

And the only things that were fouls were: Offsides, Holding defense against offense lines and visa versa, punching, tripping, kicking your opponent. And if we’d included a count of four Mississippi due to not enough players; then we had penalties for that violation as well. And the one steadfast rule—You didn’t complain about something frivolous like your new knit sweater getting stretched out because it was the only way to grab you in a tackle. Once you whined or fussed over something frivolous, not letting it go after two mentions. Basically, you were considered the ultimate pussy and weren’t invited to play in future football games. Cause man, how could you be a professional football player like us?---Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to

Christmas is Full of ...

  Christmas is full of wishes, hopes, dreams and perhaps joys. Things we desire and things we need. Everyday I awaken, I know I have more now than I had as a child—by far. We have two refrigerators, air-conditioning, nice heating system, colored television, three landlines to phones, relatively new cars that we paid in full upon purchase.   Yes, no debt outside the monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual bills to pay. I can drive to the food store. Our daughters have never or rarely ever; I can count on one hand that they had to get something for the house because I’d forgotten an item or couldn’t afford it on my weekly shopping list. We have three pets. Our daughters have and will have an incredible education—the choice of being studious is up to them.   We have a double oven. We have an attic and a basement. Our daughters work, not because they have to right now, but because they want to. We parents have had our own bedroom. We have two bathrooms. We have a washer and a dryer.